Orcs

[Set]

If you want to go with Drow-warped former slave/soldiers, you could explain the brutish qualities of the Orcs by taking a page from the pig-headed orcs off 1st edition, and have alll Orcs have a mixture of humanoid blood, tainted by Drow magic and foul experiments to include animalistic traits. All Orcs are deformed, remaining humanoid, but having features of various predatory animals the Drow used ages ago to 'savage them up' into a suitable warrior / brute race. Some might have pig like tusks, others cat-like eyes or elongated snouts or twitching canine ears or feathers and scales along their arms or four fingered hands that look less like a hand and more like on oversized crows talons.

The vast majority of these orcs would retain the usual orcish traits, but one in a dozen might have even stronger ties to whatever predatory beast(s) went into it's bloodline, such as a natural bite attack, or a point or two of natural armor, or the scent ability from their wolf-like snout.

Again, the vast majority of orcs would be a motley mix of characteristics, but a few would have purer bloodlines, and be more visibly reminiscent of a particular animal, such as a bear or a wolf or a lion. Most of them wouldn't have anything special because of that, but would tend to take on leadership positions, regarding less 'purebred' orcs as being mongrels who have diluted their potential. These orcs would be proud racist totemists, seeking out creatures of their totem types to tame, and encouraging ranger and druid levels in their most powerful warriors and priests, so as to be able to bond with their totem animals.

All such animalls would be predatory. Orcs were not made into orcs by imbuing them with the essence of stags or bulls or horses or other potentially powerful animals, since their creators wanted to make them as savage as possible.

In retrospect, had they combined their base stock with more tractable and domesticable herd animals (strong and powerful ones), such as bulls and horses, they might have had better luck keeping control of them...

 

[Glade Riven]

If you want to go with Drow-warped former slave/soldiers, you could explain the brutish qualities of the Orcs by taking a page from the pig-headed orcs off 1st edition, and have alll Orcs have a mixture of humanoid blood, tainted by Drow magic and foul experiments to include animalistic traits. All Orcs are deformed, remaining humanoid, but having features of various predatory animals the Drow used ages ago to 'savage them up' into a suitable warrior / brute race. Some might have pig like tusks, others cat-like eyes or elongated snouts or twitching canine ears or feathers and scales along their arms or four fingered hands that look less like a hand and more like on oversized crows talons.

The vast majority of these orcs would retain the usual orcish traits, but one in a dozen might have even stronger ties to whatever predatory beast(s) went into it's bloodline, such as a natural bite attack, or a point or two of natural armor, or the scent ability from their wolf-like snout.

Again, the vast majority of orcs would be a motley mix of characteristics, but a few would have purer bloodlines, and be more visibly reminiscent of a particular animal, such as a bear or a wolf or a lion. Most of them wouldn't have anything special because of that, but would tend to take on leadership positions, regarding less 'purebred' orcs as being mongrels who have diluted their potential. These orcs would be proud racist totemists, seeking out creatures of their totem types to tame, and encouraging ranger and druid levels in their most powerful warriors and priests, so as to be able to bond with their totem animals.

All such animalls would be predatory. Orcs were not made into orcs by imbuing them with the essence of stags or bulls or horses or other potentially powerful animals, since their creators wanted to make them as savage as possible.

In retrospect, had they combined their base stock with more tractable and domesticable herd animals (strong and powerful ones), such as bulls and horses, they might have had better luck keeping control of them...

Interesting, but I don't see myself using it at this point since I am aiming for the aberration angle.

 

[steeldragons]

I like a lot of what I'm reading here.

Good thread. I'm all for creativity.

At the same time, I'm a bit of a..."purist" I suppose. Monstrous humanoid (or at least "goblinoid" races in my homebrew world are all corruptions of other races.

In the case of orcs, they are a pre-history tribe(s) of humans who fell to the demoness/lesser goddess Djarthoon's corruptive influence to serve the "Chaosbringer", Karos, elder god of demons and fire (and ya know, "eeevilllll").

This seems to mesh with your aberration desire...orcs are not, or weren't originally, a race of their own...they are aberrations of primitive humans. Savage, not "noble savages", just savage. Wild, cruel, wicked is all respects wreaking chaos and havok, blood and death, wherever they decide to raid/pillage. They take by force and their "tribal" societies are run the same way...the strongest rule the weakest...and so, few if any are bred nowadays who are "weak" by human standards. They are, if you will use the old alignment spectrum, Chaotic Evil to the nth degree.

They worship any number of powerful evil entities, demons, dragons, extradimensional evils that are not technically "gods" or my world's god of pain and bloodlust (if they have a spiritual life at all) , the crueler the better...with no conception (or even a word in their language) for "good" or "honor"...All for the ultimate "strengthening" of their race.

Bloodletting and pain rituals are the norm. Rape, needless slaughter, cannibalism (of other races) and living sacrifice (even of their own people if noone else is available) is commonplace.

They are "aberrant" in the truest sense...no reason this can't make them "aberrations" mechanically. Give them preternatural strength...ferocity...some kind of "demonic" power (even if only fluff, not a "demonic" subtype, per se)...

For example, perhaps, the party thoroughly kills an orc raider. After lying on the ground for a moment, he gets up, physically readjusts his broken neck and arm into the rightful position with loud cracks and snaps. Picks up his battle axe, looks at the PC who laid him low and charges...(when he's "killed" again, he stays dead, though.)

Or some supernatural resistance to certain types of damage...supernatural reflexes or a resistance to fire or something...nothing like a raging orc, entirely on fire from that last fireball, hurtling toward you with a now-momentarily-flaming axe.

I dunno. Just throwing out rambling ideas...

Good luck and happy orcing.
--Steel Dragons

 

[Rel]

Just as a further thought, I think you could explain a lot about Orcs by the notion that they don't experience much, if any, pain.

I mean empathy is based on the notion that we can understand somebody else's feelings. If Orcs don't feel pain the way we think of it as humans then they won't have any empathy for the pain they cause. This naturally leads to a society where they treat each other roughly and of course do the same to outsiders.

 

[Stormonu]

In the campaign worlds I've made, orcs have always been super soldier types created by goblin alchemy and magic. At some point, they rebelled and decided they ought to be their own masters - and master over anyone else they could bully.

 

[jonesy]

Why do orcs always have to have been created by someone or been slaves or soldiers of someone?

Why couldn't they be the creators for once, with elves and dwarves as their slavesoldiers?

Here's what I'm thinking:


Once, aeons ago, a faction of the extra-dimensional beings who called themselves the Orico grew tired of their fierce and chaotic home dimension and decided to head out in search of a better way. They searched long and wide, occasionally fighting wars with others of their calibre, other times merely observing the follies of lesser beings. Eventually it occurred to them that the better way did not exist, and they would need to make it themselves. So they descended upon a young star system and began to mold it. But as they poured their heart and soul into the system they also began to diminish. The more they laboured the less they became. They were nothing but lazy and too busy doing to notice the change that took over them through the years and years that their task took. But in the end, they had found what they were looking for. A place ordered and peaceful, a place where new life blossomed, a wondrous place. A place for them to ransack and pillage, as they had their own so very long ago. It was just too bad they themselves remembered nothing of this. They were having too much fun being bad to notice.

 

[Glade Riven]

Might be good for bad guys, but the Theocracy of the Church of Celestial Gears is lawful neutral and at least 80% civilized orc.

 

[jonesy]

That's just the beginning. You could build up to how they slowly break away from their vicious cycle and become civilized.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Orcs taste good cooked.




What?

 

[Eric Tolle]

Here's what we get when we take a Traveller 2300 alien and replace the word "Kafer" with "Orc":

"The nature of Orc intelligence has posed a serious problem for human scholars attempting to understand their behavior. Orcs appear slow-witted, even stupid, at first. Numerous observers have reported that, in the first moments of a fight, their Orcish opponents appeared to mill about in confusion as if uncertain what to do, and that their officers could be seen moving among them, beating them or using something like a cattle prod or whip as if to get them moving. Strangely, after only a few moments of combat, Orcs are transformed, becoming cunning, innovative, and deadly opponents. As described elsewhere, Orc intelligence is dependent upon a biochemical analogue to adrenalin. Introduced to the bloodstream in large amounts when danger threatens, this chemical enables Orc brains to work at far greater efficiency than normal. The effects are maintained until the chemical breaks down, approximately 30 minutes after the stimulus ceases. This singular fact of Orc evolution has resulted in a new type of "short term intelligence," where Orcs show an ability to think quickly as an emergency develops, and concentrate on day-to-day survival at a lower, almost instinctual level. With the advent of technology, this aspect of Orc evolution has hampered their development in several ways."

"Orc civilization depends on violence. Indeed, the father of Orc civilization decreed that violence is the lifeblood of the people. Orcs seek stimulation, be it in simple brawls to gladiatorial combat to war. Orcs feel no fear, or rather they feel something like fear, but they enjoy it. Likewise Orc medicine is quite primitive, having never developed painkillers, which Orc would find unthinkable. the most they use is a red-hot blade to sear wounds shut."

"Orc culture is an intellectual aristocracy, because not all Orcs are of equal intelligence, and there are indeed Orc geniuses. Also, Orcs who survive a long time find their at rest intelligence rising over time due to the repeated stimulation cycles having a permanent after effect, like exercising a human muscle. "

"The greatest, instinctual fear of the Orc is of the "smart barbarian"; Orcs that are smarter due to lacking the comforts of civilization, and that cause the downfall of Orc civilization. Over history there's been a repeated cycle of Orcs creating civilizations, losing the stimulus to make them intelligent, only to fall to smarter barbarian Orcs. This has only ceased relatively recently, when an Orc genius declared a religion of constant recreational violence to keep Orcs relatively intelligent."


So basically, if you adapt Kafers to orcs, you get a far more alien creature that is violent and warlike not because it is inherently evil or beholden to some god, but because violence and combat makes it feel smarter and more alive. But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with, in fact it makes it more troubling, because even if you take orcs and raise them in human society, they'll STILL have the need for violence.

For Pathfinder, the stats would be something like:

STR 14
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 4/14
WIS 6/12
CHA 8

Feats: Endurance
Skills, normal: None.
Skills, intelligent:
Knowledge: Tactics 10
Stealth: 8
Survival: 8


For the first 1D6 rounds of combat or if they take a wound (1D3 if an officer takes the time to beat them into intelligence) , Orcs will mill around and fight and defend very stupidly. After that, the altered stats take effect, and Orcs become very canny fighters, taking advantage of cover, forming ambushes, and otherwise becoming nasty opponents.